


Safe Space

by Cerusee



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Clark shows up for like two minutes, Gen, Jason Todd is a Good Son, but he has his moments, but he maybe needs to chill, to talk about the Boy Scouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 09:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11460843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/pseuds/Cerusee
Summary: Turns out, Bruce and Jason aren’t quite on the same page about who’s parenting whom.  Bruce is going to need to clear some things up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, probably most people reading this are already aware of this, but Jason's mother, Catherine, was an addict who died of an overdose (an overdose of _what_ is unspecified, but likely heroin). Shortly after meeting Jason for the first time, Batman has this exchange with him:
> 
>  **BATMAN:** And your mother?  
>  **JASON:** She's dead. She got sick. _Okay?_
> 
> And a few panels later:
> 
>  **BATMAN:** How long was your mother sick?  
>  **JASON:** Over a year--I found her food and stuff--kept her warm--and alive...long as I could.
> 
> I make a point of mentioning this because it's pretty critical to understanding what's going on here.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, much gratitude to audreycritter for inspiration and workshopping help.

“I’ve left instructions, Master Bruce, Master Jason,” Alfred told them, trundling his suitcase towards the taxi cab. “I’m sure at least _one_ of you can follow them.”

Jason cheerfully saluted Alfred. “We’re good. Have fun hunting Nessie! Take pictures! Bring them back so Bruce can analyze them!”

Alfred rolled his eyes fondly at him, as the cabbie levered his bag into the trunk. “Understood, sir.” He waved at Jason and Bruce from the backseat of the cab.

“You _can_ follow directions, right?” Jason asked Bruce, as they went back into the Manor.

“Me?” Bruce tousled Jason’s hair. “I thought he meant you.”

 

***

 

“Hmm.” Jason poked his head under Bruce’s elbow as he opened the refrigerator door, surveying the contents of the fridge. Rows of filled glass dishes and Tupperware containers, all ready for the re-heating. Alfred had learned the hard way not to trust Bruce to feed himself decently in his absence.

“S’good.” Jason batted at Bruce. “Scram. I’m on it.”

“All right,” Bruce said, laughing. “You pick. Whatever.”

“Mm-hm.” Jason shooed Bruce out of the kitchen.

 

***

 

“Okay,” Jason said, conveying the great glass dish from the kitchen to the table, clutched between thick oven mitts. “This is Alfred’s lasagna Bolognese. That’s the one with just, uh, meat, and—” he scrunched his eyebrows for just a moment, as he settled it onto the table. “ _Bechamel_. Bechamel sauce.”

Bruce nodded solemnly. “Understood.”

“Also there’s salad. I made that.”

“Looks great,” Bruce said. He let Jason serve a substantial square of lasagna onto his plate, and salad on the side. He watched Jason deal out his own portions, and then raised his water glass at Jason. “Bon appetit.”

Jason beamed at him.

 

***

 

It had been a long, slow, draining day. All-day meetings that seemed to have neither function nor end, bookended by traffic jams. By the time Bruce came up from the garage, he didn’t care what he’d find when he reached the kitchen. He was ravenous; he'd eat crackers or cookies or cereal; whatever was easiest.

Even if he wanted to, Bruce knew better than to go out on patrol without eating after the last time he'd tried it—Jason had locked himself inside the Batmobile and refused to let Bruce inside until he'd eaten two of Alfred's sandwiches and a glass of milk. And then he'd made him wait another half an hour, because, Jason said, "You can't go patrolling right after you eat, Bruce. You'll get a cramp." Jason had camped out in the car the whole time, reading _The Phantom Tollbooth_ , which he said was for a book report. Bruce eventually gave up arguing and retreated to the computer to pretend to work in an attempt to salvage his dignity.

Also, so Jason couldn't see him laughing. 

“Hey, Bruce!” Jason said, cheerily. He shoved a steaming bowl down the kitchen island in Bruce’s direction. 

Macaroni and cheese, with chunks of hot dog. Not exactly gourmet, but it was hot, filling, and as hungry as Bruce was just then, as enticing as a plate of steak frites with hotel butter. “ _Bless_ you, lad.” He sank onto a stool, and shoved a heaping spoonful of pasta into his mouth. 

“Wait, hold on,” Jason said, rising from his seat. “Here,” he said, filling a glass from a chilled carafe of water in the refrigerator, and pushing it towards Bruce. 

Bruce paused wolfing down the macaroni and took a long drink of water. “Mmm, thanks.” He took another bite. A few more, and the world might seem right again. He saw Jason had papers spread across the island. “Homework?” 

“Environmental Science,” Jason said, head bent over his work. 

“Need any help?” 

“Nah. Not for this. This is kind of baby sh-stuff,” Jason said, with a shrug. “Thanks, though. Are you going out?” 

“In a bit.” 

Jason got up again and went back to the fridge. He returned with a glass of milk. “Drink this before you go.” 

Bruce chuckled, taking the glass, but not drinking it. “Really?” 

Jason looked up at Bruce from his homework, and then away, curling his hands around his elbows and hunching down. “Whatever.” 

But Bruce saw how Jason kept him in the corner of his eye until Bruce had finished both the macaroni and the milk. 

“G’night, Bruce,” Jason said. “Be careful, okay?” 

“Of course,” Bruce told him, rising to go towards the study. 

“Hm,” Jason said, behind him. 

*** 

Bruce sorted through his papers with increasing frustration. All right, maybe he had left a little _too_ much of the domestic paperwork for Alfred. But Alfred had specifically reminded him that Jason had a permission slip that needed signing, and it was supposed to be on Bruce’s desk waiting for him. And yet, it was nowhere to be found. Maybe Jason had it. 

Bruce knocked on Jason’s door, slightly ajar. “Jason…?” 

“Bruce?” Jason twisted from his desk towards the door. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a permission slip for a field trip to Philadelphia, would you?” 

“Oh, that.” Jason said. “It’s all set.” 

“Did Alfred—hold on, he shouldn’t be able to sign for that.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Jason assured him, blithely. “I signed it.” 

_What the hell…_ “Jason, you can’t sign for anything, you’re a minor.” 

Jason stared at him. “It’s not a big deal, Bruce, it’s just a permission slip.” 

“Which, I, as your legal guardian, need to sign.” 

“I took care of it, don’t worry about it,” Jason said. 

“Jason. Can I see the permission slip, please?” 

Jason crooked an eyebrow at him, but pulled a piece of paper out of a folder on his desk and handed to Bruce. 

It was pretty good, Bruce had to admit. And it _was_ just a permission slip. But he could hardly let this go. “Jason. You _forged my signature._ ” 

Jason looked slightly taken aback. “It’s...it’s a permission slip. It’s boring school stuff. I wasn’t lying about anything. It’s normal stuff.” 

“Jason _Peter_ Todd,” Bruce said. “Under no circumstances is it permissible to forge my signature on _anything_. Ever.” 

“Okay,” Jason said. He seemed slightly bemused. “Sure. No problem. If that’s how you want it.” 

“Why would I ever—” 

“Bruce, I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Okay? It's not a big deal. Next time I'll come to you.” 

But Jason still seemed unconcerned about what he'd done. 

*** 

Bruce silently thanked both Heaven and Lucius Fox for the Batmobile as it steered itself into the Cave. He _could_ drive even with a compromised leg, but he was glad not to have to. He opened the door, pressing the bunched cape against his bleeding thigh. 

Jason was already halfway across the Cave from the table, spread with books and papers, where he’d been sitting when the car came in. He was visibly alarmed. “Bruce! What happened?” 

“Just a little...light stabbing. It's not serious.” Bruce tried to smile for him. “Where’s Alfred?” he said, stumbling, as he extricated himself from the car, leaning against it to take the weight off his left side. 

“It’s his poker night,” Jason said, frowning. He prodded at Bruce’s leg. “How bad is it really?” 

“Oh damn, I forgot. I’m not sure. It probably needs stitches.” 

Jason helped Bruce limp over towards the medical bay, one arm slung over Jason’s shoulders. “Stay there,” he said, half assisting, half hoisting Bruce onto a bed. Bruce leaned his head back the wall and breathed deeply, waiting. 

“Okay,” Jason said, after a minute. He smiled tremulously at Bruce, clutching a couple of bottles of sterilized water in one hand, and one of the Cave’s medical kits in another. “Don’t look, okay?” 

Bruce maintained a dignified silence as Jason cut away the ripped shreds of the suit, exposing the jagged slash across his thigh. Jason whistled. “Stitches for sure.” He began irrigating the wound. 

“We can wait for Alfred,” Bruce told him. “If it's poker night, he'll be back by midnight.” 

Jason shook his head as he turned away to prep the local anaesthetic. “Don't be stupid. I can handle stitches.” He injected the local around Bruce’s wound, carefully. 

They counted away the minutes together. 

“You’re good?” Jason said. 

By then, the surface of his thigh was completely numb. “Go ahead,” Bruce said. 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them while he took a deep breath. He inserted the needle into the edge of the cut on Bruce’s thigh. 

Careful stitches, tiny stitches, the way Alfred had taught him. The way Alfred had once taught Bruce. _What a terrible thing to have to know_ , Bruce thought, keeping an abstract eye on Jason as he worked. But so useful. You never knew when you’d need to know how to sew someone back together. 

“All set,” Jason said. Bruce started out of the trance he hadn’t realized he’d gone into. He looked at his thigh with conscious purpose. It was ugly; wounds usually were. But the stitches were clean and even—too clean, too even, nobody Jason’s age should be able to do that—and Jason was coming back towards him with a bandage in one hand and medical tape in the other. 

Jason bandaged Bruce’s thigh, carefully, smoothed down the last edge of tape. 

“Okay,” Jason said. “Don't walk on that.” He turned to rummage in Alfred’s medical cabinet, and came up with a pill bottle. He twisted the cap off and shook out a couple of pills, which he held out to Bruce. “Here.” 

Bruce stared at him. He knew how much Jason hated this part. Jason often went and hid behind the computer so he didn’t have to see Bruce swallow painkillers, or watch Alfred inject Bruce with a sedative. He’d been known to leave the Cave entirely. Disappearing as far as the attic, at least once, according to Alfred, crying and pretending not to when he was found. 

It didn't take a detective to understand why. 

Jason looked at the floor, and then back at Bruce. “Just...come on.” 

“Jason…?” 

“Just fucking take them!” Jason blurted. “Pain management is an important part of healing. That’s what Alfred says. Fucking _take them_.” Jason stood trembling. Bruce thought he might flee, but he didn’t; Jason just waited until Bruce had swallowed the pills. 

Jason sat on a neighboring hospital bed, and watched as Bruce laid back and struggled to relax into the effects of the drugs. He didn't mind the hovering, exactly; he appreciated that Jason cared about him. But it also bothered him, somehow. “What were you working on when I came in?” Bruce asked, as the edges of the world grew fuzzy. 

“German homework. _Geh schlafen_.” Jason smiled tremulously at Bruce. “Get some rest, okay?” 

*** 

It was the sun that woke him eventually, bright afternoon sun peeking around the edges of the bedroom curtains, lightening the room just enough to finally draw Bruce out of a deep and satisfying slumber. 

Which, he realized slowly and with chagrin, was all wrong because he'd meant to be up in the _morning_ , and it should have been his alarm clock waking him up. He glanced at the clock. 2pm. Oh damn. Today’s meeting was a lost cause. 

And where was Alfred? What had stopped him from rousing Bruce when the alarm clock had failed? Could something have happened to him? But surely Jason would have come and found him, if something was wrong with Alfred, unless— 

A rising sense of urgency propelled him out of his room in sweatpants and a t-shirt. He resisted the urge to call for either the old man or the boy, on the slight chance that the Manor had been somehow compromised. 

He found Alfred emerging from the laundry room with a basket of towels, warm enough from the dryer that Bruce could feel their heat without touching them. 

“Something the matter, sir?” Alfred asked, noting Bruce’s agitation, poorly concealed by Bruce’s standards. 

“Evidently not,” Bruce said. “Except that I've somehow completely missed my 9am meeting.” 

“Ah yes,” Alfred said. “I was approached by a certain party with a proposition.” 

“Who’s the party and what was the proposition?” Bruce said, resigned, although he already knew where this was going. 

“Young Master Jason suggested that you could use a decent night’s sleep for a change. He did persuade your secretary to reschedule your meeting, so don't fret on that account.” 

“Which one of you turned off my alarm?” 

Alfred smiled at him. “Why don't we leave that as an exercise of the imagination, sir.” 

Bruce sighed. “Where is he?” 

“At school, sir. It is a Tuesday.” Alfred shifted the laundry basket to one arm and rested his free hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Don't be hard on him, Master Bruce. He sees you stretching yourself far too thin and he worries. He's only trying to look after you.” 

“I'm his father, Alfred,” Bruce said, his throat feeling full. “ _I_ should be looking after _him_.” 

“No question in _my_ mind, sir,” Alfred said gravely. “But...perhaps it is, at times, a question in his.” He gave Bruce’s shoulder a firm squeeze, then released it it to support the basket properly. “Food for thought, Master Bruce,” he said over his shoulder, as he passed through the room. 

Bruce stared after him. “You know, I _did_ manage to keep Dick and myself alive every time you went on vacation,” he grumbled, mostly to himself, as Alfred was now out of earshot. “For _ten years_. Couldn’t have pointed _that_ out to the kid, oh no...” 

*** 

Bruce made a point of being there when Alfred shuttled Jason home that afternoon, leaning against the wall of the foyer with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow. 

“If you want me to say I’m sorry, I’m not.” Jason told him, both arms clutched around a thick stack of books and papers. “You need to sleep more.” 

“You can’t just do things like this, Jason,” Bruce said, with more than a hint of exasperation. 

“Why not?” Jason shot at him. He trod doggedly through the public rooms into the school room. Bruce followed him in long strides. “You don’t sleep enough. Someone has to make you.” Jason dumped his armful of papers onto the table, and started to sort them. 

“That’s a lot of homework,” Bruce said, raising an eyebrow. He picked up a stapled handout. “‘What Is Sleep Hygiene’...oh _come on_.” 

“Mrs. Tesway says everyone needs at least eight hours a night to function normally.” Jason looked over his shoulder at Bruce. “ _To function normally _.”__

____

____

“The science on that is still inconclusive,” Bruce said, lightly. 

Jason snorted. “Then why do you and Alfie make me go to bed early when I’m not on patrol?” 

“You’re a kid. Kids need sleep to grow,” Bruce told him. 

Jason picked up a handful of papers and fanned them out at Bruce. “I dare you to show me where on here it says that grown-ups _don’t_ need sleep.” 

“The reason you have a bedtime and I don’t is that as your parent, it’s my job to make sure sure you get the sleep you need to thrive in school and in the field,” Bruce informed Jason. “As an adult, I can determine that for myself.” 

Jason snorted. “Bullshh—hockey. I know you were up at 4am, working downstairs. And you were going to, what, nap for a couple of hours and get up for a 9am meeting in the city?” 

“Hold on,” Bruce said. “What were you doing up at 4am on a school night?” 

Jason’s eyes darted to the side, and he crossed his arms. “Needed a glass of water.” 

Bruce took a deep breath, in lieu of rolling his eyes. “In the Cave?” 

Jason’s chin sunk against his chest and his shoulders rose, defensively. 

“Jason,” Bruce said, intuition blooming. “Have you been checking up on me at night?” 

“Why not?” Jason said, in a whining tone. “ _You_ do it to _me_.” 

Bruce shook his head, sighing. “Jason, it’s not the same. At all.” 

“Why _not_?” Jason repeated, sounding frustrated. 

“Because I am your _father_!” Bruce half-shouted. “ _I_ look after _you_. Not the other way around.” He softened his voice. “That’s just how this works, kid.” 

Jason looked at him like Bruce had told him that the crescent moon was an albino batarang. He shook his head. “I don’t—that’s _not_ how this works.” He laughed, sounding confused. “That’s not how the _world_ works. People don’t just do things for you without expecting something in return. Nobody eats for free.” 

He dreaded the answer, but Bruce asked anyway, “What do you think we expect from you, Jason?” 

“I watch your back,” Jason said, in a tone that suggested that this was the most obvious thing in the world. “You need someone to have your back. Isn’t that why you made me Robin?” 

Bruce floundered for a moment. “I—yes, _partly_. Having a partner is good for me, as many...irritating people over the years have liked to suggest to me. I knew almost from the moment that I met you that you would do a tremendous job of it, and you _have_ , and I couldn’t be more pleased with you on that front,” he said, with growing intensity. “But Jason, it was also about _you_. Giving _you_ the opportunity to fulfill all the potential I saw in you. To give you back some of the things that life had stolen from you, to give you a second chance.” 

“And you _did!_ ” Jason exclaimed, throwing both hands up. “I’m doing _fine_ , Bruce. I have a roof over my head. I eat regular, good stuff. I’m back in _school_ ”—the naked delight on Jason’s face made Bruce’s breath catch in his throat—”and I get to kick bad guy ass and help people! I’m doing _great_.” 

“What bothers me,” Bruce said slowly, “is that I’m starting to get the impression that you think that being Robin, that _having my back_ , is somehow the price of admission to being here, being _my son_.” 

Jason cocked his head. “Isn’t it?” 

Bruce’s jaw dropped. “ _No_ ,” he forced out of a mouth, a face, a body gone numb. “No. It’s not, Jason. It never was and it never will be.” He put out a questing hand out to steady himself on the back of a chair. After a moment, he said, “I...I can see how, in retrospect, I might have led you to think that, by offering you Robin right away. But if you decided you wanted to quit being Robin—yes, I would miss having you out there by my side. But I wouldn’t love you any less, or think any less of you.” 

Jason looked skeptical. He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead and made a frustrated noise. “ _Bruce_ ,” he said. “I can’t—” Jason shook his head. “What if you get—what if you make yourself sick, doing all of this?" 

Bruce opened his mouth and shut it abruptly. 

Jason hunched over, arms wrapped around himself. “What if you get hurt, really bad?” he asked, mostly into his own arms. “What happens then?” 

Bruce stared down at Jason, desperately grateful at that moment not to have to meet his eyes. He swallowed heavily. 

He sat down next to Jason, cupping Jason’s chin in his hand, lifting his face until they looked eye-to-eye. 

“Alfred is your godfather. I’ve made provisions in my will. You’d stay, here, with him,” Bruce told Jason, gently. “If anything happened to me. And you would inherit. This place. Money. Which—it wouldn’t all just be thrown at you; there’s Lucius, and lawyers, to help you with it. But Jason, I promise you, I _promise_ you, whatever happens, it won’t be like before. You won’t be alone. You won’t be forgotten. You’ll be taken care of, even if I’m gone.” 

Jason trembled in Bruce’s gentle grasp, but didn't pull away. He stared Bruce dead in the eye for a minute, two minutes, three, still shivering. Then he blinked vigorously and nodded hard. 

“Okay,” Bruce heard Jason say, faintly. Jason relaxed just a little bit, and wrapped his arms around Bruce. He buried his face against Bruce’s chest, sighing deeply. 

Bruce succumbed to impulse, and carded his fingers through Jason’s hair. “It’s not all bad, kiddo,” he murmured. “I know it seems like it is, sometimes, but it’s not.” 

Jason made a vaguely disapproving noise against Bruce’s chest. Bruce squeezed his arms around him. 

Jason turned his face slightly to the side. “Don't die,” he whispered up at Bruce. “Please. Please don't die.” 

Bruce swallowed hard. “I won't. I promise.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue.

“All right, chum, off to bed with you,” Bruce said, giving Jason a pat on his shoulder once he was changed out of his uniform and into the pajamas which Alfred had laid out in preparation for their return from patrol. (Once upon a time, the Cave had only held post-patrol sweats. Jason, however, preferred to sleep in pajamas, and complained bitterly about having to change _twice_ after patrol. The pajamas in the Cave had been the compromise between that and Alfred’s strict no-uniforms-upstairs rule.)

Jason narrowed his eyes as Bruce moved towards the Batcomputer. He opened his mouth, but before he could protest, Bruce put one hand up in the air and said, “I’ll be up in fifteen minutes. Scout’s honor. I just need to do a quick update on the Penguin’s file.”

“You were never a Boy Scout,” Jason said. Which he actually knew for a fact; it’d come up during a slightly odd conversation with Superman on a visit to the Watchtower, in which Superman had mentioned that he himself had, in fact, been a Boy Scout. He’d been trying to persuade Bruce to enroll Jason in the Scouts, after discovering that until he’d met Bruce, Jason had never even been out of Gotham, much less in the country, and lacked all kinds of wilderness skills that Clark felt strongly every child should have.

“I learned all kinds of useful things in the Scouts,” Clark had said, brimming with nostalgia. “How to tie all kinds of knots—”

“I already know how to do that,” Jason interjected. “I’m also a real whiz at picking locks.”

“—how to build a lean-to in the wild—”

“I built a shelter out of cardboard once, before I found a better squat. It was pretty warm, too!” Jason was still vaguely proud of that one. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce wince.

“—how to make a fire with two sticks—”

“Clark, you can set things on fire with your _eyes_ ,” Bruce said.

“Yes, and I can also set things on fire with two sticks,” Clark said, slightly petulant. “I admit it goes a bit faster if I bring superspeed into the mix, but it’s the same basic principle, and when I earned my camping badge, I did it at normal human speed.”

“Nevertheless,” Bruce said, back in the here and now. “I will be up soon. I promise.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Jason said.

“Fifteen minutes,” Bruce repeated, sitting at the desk, pushing the cowl back. “And don’t forget to brush your teeth, sport.”

Jason lingered just a moment longer, watching Bruce, and then turned and trudged towards the elevator, fatigue after a long night of patrolling—which had followed a long day of school and homework—starting to set into his bones.

He believed Bruce, he thought. Bruce had been a lot better about this kind of thing, lately. Alfred had come down with a bad cold last month, and Jason had been in the kitchen already pulling out Alfred’s recipe book to make him some soup, when Bruce had come home with a whole gallon of chicken soup from the delicatessen in one hand, and a bag full of take-out from Jason’s favorite Italian restaurant in the other. (Chicken scallopini with piccata sauce for Jason, veal scallopini with marsala sauce for Bruce; gnocchi with vodka sauce for Alfred if he felt up to something more substantial than soup. He’d even remembered to pick up the breadsticks and a little ramekin of the restaurant’s fancy imported butter than Jason loved, and tiramisu for dessert.) 

And last week, when an Arkham breakout kept them out almost the whole night, Bruce had texted his secretary to reschedule his morning meeting and left a note for Alfred, asking him to call Jason out sick before school started, before hieing them both off to bed. They’d both slept in, and gotten up in the afternoon and had omelettes and coffee at 3pm, which made Jason feel sophisticated, somehow. (Jason had only been allowed one cup while Bruce had _three_ , but what the heck.) They killed the rest of the day watching _The Seven Samurai_. Bruce had to talk Jason through his initial reluctance towards a three-and-a-half hour, black-and-white movie with subtitles, but it turned out to be an _awesome_ movie. Pretty good day, considering that they’d spent the night before it chasing down Poison Ivy _and_ the Riddler.

It had been a while since Bruce came back from solo patrol with untended injuries, too—Jason wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought Bruce was making a point of going to Doc Thompkins more, now. And honestly, he couldn’t help but be selfishly grateful about that, even while a little part of felt like maybe Bruce was babying him. (Those stitches he’d put in Bruce’s leg had been _great_ , and the wound had healed cleanly. It had scarred, but Bruce said with a cut that size, there was no helping it, and the important thing was that he hadn’t lost any function from it.)

But at least he didn’t have to be the one to put a pill bottle in Bruce’s hands anymore, so he wasn’t going to complain, no matter what.

When Jason reached his room, he dutifully went to brush his teeth. When he was done, he climbed into bed and turned out the light, then paused, and climbed back out again. He went over to sit on the floor of the outer room that led to the hall, leaning against the door, silently waiting, listening, in darkness.

Not ten minutes later (he thought, anyway, having kept track by counting the seconds, a trick he’d learned long before he met Bruce, when he’d spent far too much time hiding in cupboards, in alleys, in dumpsters, waiting until it was safe to come out) he heard footsteps, up the stairs, down the hallway, towards Bruce’s suite. And then a pause, and the footsteps turning back down the hall, towards Jason’s door. Jason leapt silently to his feet, ready to dart back into his bedroom, but before he could move, he heard Bruce’s amused voice through the door.

“Go to bed, Jay-lad. It’s late, and we all need our sleep.”

Jason tip-toed through the dark rooms and slipped back into his bed, pulling the covers over his head, as if to hide the faint flush at getting caught from any invisible onlookers, in the darkened room.

It was impossible, of course, to see a smile in pitch-blackness, much less through a closed door. Nevertheless, as Bruce would say, though. 

Nevertheless, Jason knew it was there.


End file.
